System and method for applying system policies in an optical communication system having user-allocated bandwidth

A system and method that enforces one or more policy rules on user-allocated bandwidth portions of the overall system bandwidth, for example in an optical fiber transmission system. The policy rules may limit, for example, the range of optical wavelengths, the acceptable range on the output-power-spectral density and/or the total per-band optical power within the user-allocated bandwidth that a user may provide on the system. The system may include one or more user control units that receives respective user output signals and applies all policy rules. The resulting optical output(s) of the UCU(s) may be provided an optical transmission path for transmission to a receiving terminal. In the receiving terminal, one or more UCU(s) may apply receiver policy rules, for instance by limiting the range of wavelengths transmitted to a receive subsystem. In addition, the system may be configured to dynamically add and/or remove loading signals to the transmitted signal in response to changes in loading of the user-allocated portions of the system bandwidth, e.g. through dropping or adding of channels by a user or by equipment failures.